Billionaires’ duel in Maryland turns into personal proxy war

In Maryland’s 6th District primary, Rep. April McClain Delaney and billionaire David Trone are waging a high-dollar fight where a single vote on the Laken Riley Act, reproductive-rights ads, and the unresolved question of Hillary Clinton’s non-endorsement are

The mailers and the television ads arrive like jabs—quick, targeted, and designed to land before voters can look away. In Maryland’s 6th District, where eight Democrats are competing in the June 23 primary, Rep. April McClain Delaney and billionaire David Trone have made the contest feel less like a routine re-election bid and more like an escalating grudge match.

The money alone is straining attention. Trone. who represented the district from 2019 to 2025 before giving it up for an unsuccessful Senate bid. has loaned his campaign $25 million as of June 3. according to the most recent Federal Election Commission data. McClain Delaney, defending her seat against Trone, has loaned her campaign $7.4 million and is expected to give an additional $5 million. The race is already looking built for maximum saturation—ads, counter-ads, and political symbolism stacked on top of policy.

At the center of the fight are two candidates who portray each other as the problem. even as they try to define what voters should do with their loyalty next. McClain Delaney. a millionaire lawmaker whose husband. John Delaney. previously held the seat before making an unsuccessful 2020 presidential bid. has framed Trone’s attacks as revenge politics. Trone has responded as if the accusations themselves are the real insult.

McClain Delaney told HuffPost that Trone is a “bored billionaire” out for retribution against the Democrats who endorsed his opponents in past primary races. She described it as “a retribution project against the governor. against our lieutenant governor. and about how the federal delegation did not support him.” And then she tightened the message further: “It’s not as much about me. it’s more about his retribution tour. and that’s a really sad place to be.”.

In an interview, Trone pushed back hard. He called McClain Delaney’s comments “dumb. ” insisted he is not bored. and pointed to philanthropy—including a recent $10 million gift to Johns Hopkins University. “I’m in this because I am just so disappointed in her voting with Republicans time and time again. ” Trone said.

The legal argument Trone keeps returning to begins with a single vote that McClain Delaney cast in January of last year. She voted for the Laken Riley Act. named after a 22-year-old Georgia woman who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant who’d previously been arrested for multiple crimes. including theft. The bill was the first Trump signed into law during his second term. It requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants arrested for theft or shoplifting—a policy that is described as potentially infringing on constitutional due process rights. McClain Delaney was one of 44 House Democrats who voted for the bill. and she concedes that it gives Trone “a truthful criticism” to make. She also says Trone is making too much of it.

“That’s like the only thing he has,” she said. She added that it was early in her time in Congress. arguing that most of the lawmakers now questioned about it were still new: “And that was my second week. and most. most of us who you know had just come in. were in more purple districts.” Then came the question that keeps resurfacing in her explanation: “How would I have known what DHS would become?”.

Trone’s approach is different. He has made McClain Delaney’s vote for the Republican-backed bill the centerpiece of his TV ads. Even so, Trone has also tried to position himself as a bipartisan figure in other moments—pointing to his record of working with Republicans.

At a dinner for the Garrett County Democratic Party last week, Trone said, according to a video obtained by HuffPost, “I was the fourth-most bipartisan member of Congress.” He added: “Every bill I did was bipartisan. That’s the way you ought to do it. Bipartisan.”

The contrast doesn’t just show up in campaign rhetoric. It plays out in the way each candidate tries to own a different part of the Democratic coalition—particularly on reproductive rights—while also turning the other side’s record into a warning.

Trone’s campaign materials emphasize reproductive rights, noting he helped fund a women’s health clinic that does abortions. Disclosure forms show Trone’s nonprofit donated $10,000 to the clinic in 2023 when he was running for Senate. His campaign said it has since cut another $50. 000 check to the clinic. but it has also spent more advertising the gift than the amount of the gift itself. As of mid-May. his campaign had already spent more than $1 million on ads mentioning the clinic. according to a media buying source.

Last week, Trone released a new ad built around a June 2 letter from Hillary Clinton to Trone. In the ad, different women read parts of the letter in which Clinton praised him. “From funding women’s clinics and voting for reproductive rights. you have stood on the frontline of the fight for women’s equality. ” Clinton said in the letter. Clinton also told Trone she was thankful for him for staying in the arena. saying he had “stood shoulder to shoulder for LGBTQ+ friends” and “never backed down from a fight.”.

But McClain Delaney’s campaign seized on another part of the story—one that Trone’s ad left out. The ad omits the portion of the letter in which Clinton thanks Trone for attending her husband’s 80th birthday and for Trone’s (presumably monetary) support for the Clinton Foundation.

On Monday. McClain Delaney began running a new ad saying. “Hillary Clinton has long supported April McClain Delaney.” A narrator touts McClain Delaney’s endorsements from Planned Parenthood and various elected Democrats. praising her “because of her leadership in fighting to protect choice.” Her ad urges voters not to “let Trone fool you. ” and says he has given $800. 000 to “anti-choice. pro-Trump Republicans.”.

Clinton has not endorsed either candidate. Spokespeople for the former first lady did not respond to requests for comment.

The clash is happening against a wider Democratic landscape in a district that stretches from wealthy Washington. D.C. suburbs to the western edge of Maryland. Trone and McClain Delaney are among eight Democrats seeking the seat in the June 23 primary. and the other contenders have struggled to stay visible as the race’s top two campaigns spend heavily.

One of those challengers. Alexis Goldstein. said putting rich people in government is a recipe for winding up with a guy like Elon Musk cutting public programs. Goldstein is an ex-banker who worked for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before being fired by Musk’s minions. She also argued that the leading candidates are ignoring the threat artificial intelligence firms pose to the broader economy.

But in this campaign, attention keeps getting pulled back to the same two names—and the same two lines of attack. Even the money question is being fought as politics.

It’s not clear whether Trone’s spending will translate into victory. McClain Delaney’s campaign has released several polls showing her holding a double-digit lead. Trone’s campaign has countered with a polling memo claiming he is ahead by two or three percentage points.

Trone’s team also wants voters to see him as the financial underdog, even as it continues to flood the district with ads. “She’s infinitely rich. She has, clearly, the ability to self-fund, very easily a net worth of perhaps a billion dollars,” Trone said.

The contrast between portrayal and numbers is part of what makes the race feel sharp. The $25 million Trone loaned his current campaign is part of a long history of spending: he spent $60 million on his Senate campaign and $30 million on his previous House races starting in 2016. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index put Trone’s net worth at $2.4 billion in 2023. but he seemed uncomfortable with the label. pointing instead to his upbringing.

“I’m self-made, and I’ve been fortunate in my life to be successful, and I don’t ever count or add up money,” Trone said.

For now, the stakes in Maryland’s 6th District aren’t only about who wins a primary. It is also about what Democrats want their party to reward: an argument built on a single Republican-backed vote and how DHS ultimately operates. or a message rooted in reproductive rights. Clinton-era political symbolism. and the personal call-and-response of one billionaire campaign targeting another.

The human tone of the ads may differ. but the energy is the same—every attack a bet that voters will look past the spending and focus on the record. the alliances. and the grudges that candidates insist aren’t personal. As the June 23 date closes in. the question is whether that bet lands in a district already crowded with voters’ skepticism toward elites—or whether it accelerates the exact kind of politics both sides say they’re trying to avoid.

April McClain Delaney David Trone Maryland 6th District Laken Riley Act DHS detention reproductive rights Hillary Clinton Planned Parenthood June 23 primary Federal Election Commission campaign spending